My Top 10 Favorite Sports Leagues (Revisited)
A Two Year Check In
You’re supposed to do a check up with your primary care doctor every year or so. Admittedly, I fail at this miserably. In my defense, when your mom is a doctor, you also tend to go to the doctor for fewer things. This isn’t a story about my medical history I can assure you, but it is a check up, of sorts.
A little over two years ago I wrote an article about my 10 favorite sports leagues. Compared to the stuff I have written since, not a lot of people read it, and that’s ok! However, it was long and wordy, as I am often a culprit of this happening. So, I’d like to reassess my top 10 sports leagues, and see where some things have slightly changed.
My explanations will be shorter, and the order has changed a bit since I last posted. But, some things are still quite similar.
College Football
College football still runs away with being my favorite sports league. Since I last posted, players are now getting paid (above board), and the FBS has finally embraced having a more extensive playoff. Oh, And I guess I should mention that some seismic realignment has happened too. Despite all of this, college football remains my absolute favorite sport. It is the one thing that can make me want to “waste” an entire Saturday doing nothing but ingesting the entirety of the sport. Despite realignment, there are still great things that make the sports unique. So, as it stands now, it still tops this list. Hopefully we won’t get to a point where corporate greed and television money turn it into literal NFL lite.
Formula 1
Sorry to the Euro Bros and motorsport purists out there. My love for Formula 1 was not a fleeting fancy because of my obsession with Drive to Survive. My love for this sport and all of its messy shenanigans is as high as it has ever been. Despite my favorite team, Mercedes, and driver, Lewis Hamilton, falling from the mountaintop of the sport, I am still watching it every chance I get. With Hamilton’s move to Ferrari this year, I am reignited with intrigue not only for his career, but the sport on the whole. Based on 2024, there’s about 4 teams that you can say could win any race, which is a great thing. And there is tons of intrigue up and down the grid. McLaren are probably favorites to win it all this year, but Ferrari will be right there with them and Mercedes and Red Bull are formidable wild cards, especially with reigning 4 time World Drivers Champion Max Verstappen brooding at Red Bull. Hold onto your butts. 2025 is going to be wild.
UEFA Champions League
The Champions League changed its format this year, and I do think it was for the better. We were getting too many of the same results with the group play, and their new format provided a lot more parity on the whole. I do not like that it added more matches to the calendar, as players rightfully complain about there being too many of them in a season. But there is objectively more interest for a casual fan, and the competition feels more balanced this way. It is still the pinnacle of male football (soccer) in terms of concentration of talent, and with the shake up in competition they also upped the intrigue as well.
Barclays Premier League
It still continues to be the best domestic male league for soccer in terms of top to bottom talent. With the exception of a few teams, you really do feel like anyone can get a result in almost any match that happens on a given day. It’s one of those leagues where you can just put on a match and automatically be drawn in because of how balanced it all is. Of course you’ll get the occasional blow out, and inevitably some teams will be relegated that won’t surprise you. But Tottenham and Manchester United currently sit in the bottom half of the league, while Nottingham Forest are in the top 4 and ahead of Manchester City, vying for Champions League qualification. I can’t wait to see how the end of the season concludes, and only hope my own side, Chelsea, can find consistency.
College Softball
Still my second favorite collegiate sport and by a pretty significant margin. With all the football driven realignment, the PAC 12 as a softball conference ceased to exist. It was easily the most successful and storied conference in the sport, especially considering the sport grew out of the West Coast of the United States. Despite this tragic end to the historic conference, the sport is as strong as it's ever been. While mid major powers may find it more difficult to sustain success as NIL becomes more prevalent in the sport and bigger schools invest more, the games are still exceptional and it's hard to beat the action seen in slots that are usually just 2 hours. Will someone finally knock off Oklahoma in 2025? That remains to be seen.
Barclays WSL
Yup, the top flight in women’s football in England has a new sponsor since I last wrote this. Though, some things still remain the same. Somehow, despite losing Emma Hayes to the USWNT and playing without a full strength squad for the entire season, Chelsea are atop the league and look well on their way to winning, again. I am not complaining. At least the women’s side of my club is competent. But the league could do with a little more parity. Arsenal, Manchester United, and Manchester City are still going to be dog fighting for the final Champions League spots, so there’s still plenty of interest to be had. What we have to keep an eye on though, is how clubs will spend moving forward on top talent. With the Women’s Euro 2025 happening this summer, I expect there to be another resurgence in the interest in domestic leagues. Coupled with the WSL’s almost seemingly coordinated “attacks” against the NWSL in terms of poaching top USWNT talent this past transfer window, there’s tons to keep an eye on. If clubs outside the 4 mentioned start to spend more on world class talent, this league will only continue to grow in depth and (good) narrative.
NBA
Yes, the All Star Weekend needs some rejiggering. Everyone is talking about that this week. I also think the league needs to do something about their regular season. In the way sports are now 24/7/365, the NBA objectively finds a lot of the dialogue happening for their league outside of the actual content between the lines, at least in mainstream spaces. There’s plenty of hardcore ball knowers and those of us who just objectively love the game. But for the casuals the league is more reality TV than even I think its own players would want it to be. How do we fix this? I don’t know, but complaining about it doesn’t help and is super tiring. But I still love the game itself. When you actually watch these players you can’t help but be awed by the talent on display. So, we will see what happens moving forward. Best thing to do? Just watch the games, and drown out the noise and grifters.
NWSL
The National Women’s Soccer League is still the deepest and most competitive women’s league in the world. One can make the argument that there may be more talented clubs in Europe, but the competition week in and week out here in the United States is still second to none. The league still continues to grow in popularity and also continues with their expansion. While losing top USWNT talent to European Clubs might be a concern moving forward, that also might not be what’s best for the rest of the world internationally. The NWSL is precisely what MLS “fails” to be, and that is an exceptional place for the USWNT to nurture its talent against top tier competition. Emma Hayes with access to that sort of talent pool is going to be dangerous for others. I can’t wait for the NWSL to keep growing, and I look forward to seeing how my club, The Washington Spirit, keep pushing the envelope as well.
UEFA Women’s Champions League
The women’s side of the Champions League is still in the old format when it comes to group play, and since the competition is a smaller one that does make sense. That said, it does lend itself to more of the same teams continuing to advance, but it also makes for more concentrated and heavily competitive group stage matches. I think this is the next phase of the women’s game that can explode if UEFA can have a successful Women’s Euro 2025 and clubs in Europe continue to invest. What I do know, at least in the present, is that when you get to the knockout stages of the Women’s Champions League, it is as tense as the men’s competition and the passion and talent are second to none.
NFL
Ok let’s slide the NFL in there. Look, I am not putting them at 10 to troll here. I just don’t have an NFL fetish like many people in the United States. (To be fair I also do not kink shame…though I do sometimes kink as why). I don’t gamble on the sport, or any sport. And honestly, there’s just an oversaturation of coverage of the sport for me. It also doesn’t help that their greed makes it so they are playing games on every day of the week now. They even took over Christmas from the NBA. Like ok, sure. You can do that. But it just doesn’t appeal to me personally. If the NFL cut back on the content, I’d have a lot more interest. If it stuck to Sunday, Monday, and the occasional Thursday, I’d be more in. Hell, my hometown Washington Commanders are finally competent so I am looking to invest more. But it just continues to encroach on too many other spaces and sports that I love, especially college football, and that just turns me off. That said, the games are fantastic and there’s no denying why it is such a popular league here in the US.
Oh. That’s another thing. The footsie internationally is a little off putting. I get it from a strict business perspective, but they’re doing the most now.
Alright, let’s do some outside looking in for leagues that didn’t make the cut:
Men’s College Basketball
Women’s College Basketball
German Bundesliga
Major League Baseball
National Hockey League
IndyCar
English Championship
I’m actually trying to cut back on the sports notifications on my phone, so keeping up with everything is a little more difficult nowadays. But I still love tons of sports and sports leagues. I think I’ll keep doing this check every couple years or so because it does change. If you asked kid Preston or college Preston what his favorite leagues were, it would not look like this list at all. So, as I evolve, so will this list. And unlike my yearly doctor physical, this is something I can see myself dutifully checking up on moving forward.
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